By Claire DeRoin–
I figured that as a senior mass communications major I’d maybe pick up a radio show, but instead, I picked up a gig covering the President of the United States’ visit to Morningside College.
It all started midway through the week. I was hanging out in The Collegian Reporter newsroom, a room full of Mac computers setting on counters side by side. A fax machine that occasionally spits out spam messages sat in the corner, neglected. I spent my time between classes in the newsroom, doing homework or chatting with other mass comm. students.
Dr. Heistad, whom most students called “Doc,” poked his head in the room.
“Have you heard? President Obama will be speaking here on campus on Saturday.” There was a grin on his face.
As the newly hired news director for Morningside’s radio station, KMSC Fusion 93, I hoped I’d be involved.
Doc asked if I’d like to co-host radio coverage with Nick Brincks, the resident radio guru. He was a junior and knew more about radio than any student I’d met in the department. I excitedly blurted out that I’d love to be involved in any way, shape, or form.
Throughout the rest of the week, there were plenty of e-mails between Doc, myself, Dave Madsen (the chair of the department), and Obama’s press people.
I was more than thrilled when, on Thursday, I received via e-mail a link to sign up for press credentials. I filled in my information and assumed that I’d receive my e-mail confirmation in a few hours.
However, misfortune has a habit of finding me. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when an e-mail came back from the press department, denying our list of people needing credentials. Instead of the 15 on our list, we’d be granted four credentials max.
After a bit of panic, I lamented the fact that I hadn’t picked up tickets to the event. “C’est la vie,” I thought before giving up hope.
Fortunately, the department worked things out with the President’s team and we were allowed just enough passes to have a fully-functioning staff.
Alisa Christensen was to run the MCTV side of things, Scott Haas would be our main camera operator, Nick Brincks would run the KMSC equipment as well as hosting with me, and I doubled as the Collegian Reporter representative as well.
On Saturday at noon, we began to set up our equipment. I was surprised at how easy this process was. We set everything up and there weren’t really any hang-ups. Noreen, our media contact, helped us along the way.
At 1:30, everyone had to leave the area for three hours so that the Secret Service could sweep the area. I had a momentary wariness of leaving expensive equipment setting out, but then realized that the area was probably being heavily guarded by people we just couldn’t see.
Finally, after a few hours of researching what we’d do and what our game plan for the radio show was, Nick and I strolled down the mall to the media check-in table. Doc and Dave Madsen had just gotten their media passes, and said we might as well get ours, too.
“Name?” the man at the table asked. “Oh, Nick Brincks, right?” He looked down at his list of credentialed media members.
Nick looked as confused as I felt. Did this guy know every person on the list? Maybe he recognized Nick from an interview a local news station did with Nick the night before.
The man suddenly looked up from his list. “We aren’t letting press in until four.” I knew something was going to go wrong! “Well, that’s funny,” I snapped. “Our advisors just came back with their passes.” A look of guilt came across the man’s face. “Well,” he paused. “No media are being let in until four.”
I turned and headed back for the newsroom before I said something stupid and got myself banned from the event all together. Nick followed as I stormed off. We’d clearly just been discriminated against when the man saw that our listed media outlet was the college radio station. My jaw was clenched for the duration of the walk back to the newsroom.
The next time we tried for our passes was about 30 minutes later. The entire crew- Alisa, Scott, Nick, and myself- marched up to the table.
This time, our passes were handed over after a simple I.D. check. I had a moment of temporary panic as the man looked at my license, looked at me, then looked back at the license. I was left feeling more anxious than the time a bouncer at a bar told me that I either had a fake I.D., or recently had a nose job.
The man checked my name off of the list and his partner scribbled my name and the date onto the light blue badge. My heart pounded a bit fasted as I pinned the pass onto my blouse. My first press pass! And a White House-issued one, at that!
“Drop your bag on the ground there,” a woman lazily said as I beamed at her. I handed my camera bag over to a pair of men standing in the grass. They looked miserably hot in their suits, but were cheerful enough despite the heat. One of the men set the bag down on the ground and crouched over it. I was surprised at how thorough the search was. He checked every pocket and zipper. He turned all three of the cameras in the bag on, hit the “replay” buttons, and turned them back off. I was glad I’d cleared my memory cards in advance.
“Oh, you can head over and get the other scan done while I do this,” the man said once he noticed I was watching. “I won’t let you forget this.”
I tossed my folder full of notes and research down on the next table. Alisa put her purse down. I was surprised at how gingerly the agent took out her things and then put them back in exactly as they had been. The man looked relatively unconcerned about my folder.
The men with the scanning wands looked intimidating, but were much more pleasant than I was expecting. “Hands out,” the man said cheerily. “Like this.” He held his hands up. I mirrored him. He waved the wand around in front of me. “Turn around,” he said. I did. “All right, you’re good to go.”
I retrieved my camera bag and thanked the men who’d checked it. I was thoroughly impressed that the agents were friendly and personable. They were not at all cold and robotic like I’d been expecting.
Once we were at our table, I looked up to the roof of Roadman Hall. There were snipers standing up there, looking through binoculars and holding their guns casually. I jumped up. I had to take a picture! It was only 5:00 and the President wasn’t supposed to speak until 6:30, so I figured I had all sorts of time to wander around and take pictures. Alisa and I left our table and meandered through the crowd, looking for fun shots of the Secret Service or snipers. After a few shots, I heard someone at the podium. Alisa and I looked at each other in confusion.
“Is this just rehearsal?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said, looking around at the other press.
Since Morningside’s table was right next to the White House Press Corps, we figured we’d be able to pick up cues from them. However, the reporters sat around, looking highly uninterested. Some scrolled on their phones, some ate and chatted while others stared around, clearly wanting to be somewhere else.
Madsen came over to our table in a hurry. “I just talked to Noreen. I asked if the President was going to speak at 6:30, and she said ‘We are expecting the President much earlier.’”
We panicked. Nick and I had planned out a half-hour preshow, complete with “roving reporters” Katie Copple and Jihanna Hoss. (They had microphones, headsets, and were in the crowd with their general admission tickets.)
But the President can pretty much do what he wants, so we hunkered down and prepared for his message.
For an account of the President’s message, check out my article at: http://wordpress.morningside.edu/thecr/archives/4079
After the speech, and our post-speech talk show, I left the press area to put my camera bag back in the MCTV newsroom. On my way back to the press area, I was glancing up and around, still infatuated by the snipers on the rooftop. I didn’t see the men running towards me until they were about five feet away.
“Can we help you?” one of the men demanded. This was the polite security man from earlier! Didn’t he recognize me? I froze and the men continued to rush over to me. “I, I just dropped some things off in the studio. I’m from the campus media,” I managed. The men immediately ran the wand over me. I held me keys up and turned around. “I’m sorry,” I offered nervously.
“There’s no readmission. Once you leave, you don’t get back in,” one of the agents said gruffly.
“Ah, do I need to wait here, or, I mean,” I trailed off before cracking a grin and slowly letting my arms drop back down to my side. “You know, I’m pretty unlucky, and I should have been expecting something like this to happen. No one will believe it! The crew will think I’m trying to get out of moving stuff back to the studio.” I laughed. It was a nervous laugh, but it was a laugh.
After exchanging glances, one of the agents seemed to soften, but just a little. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Oh, wow, thanks. Sorry!” I shrugged and bit my lip.
One of the agents grinned. His partner gave him a disapproving look. Oops. I hurried past them before they’d change their minds.
“I see you almost didn’t make it there,” another media member laughed as I hoofed it back to the KMSC table. “No doubt,” I said, laughing.
He stopped and waited for me to enter the national media tent first.
Part of me dared to follow him in, but the large “L” for local media on my press badge would have betrayed me. “Oh,” I said, “I’m actually over here.” I nodded toward our table.
“The campus group? Very cool! Well, glad you got in!” He winked before ducking into the tent.
The rest of the event was pretty unsuccessful. The cameras, microphones, and all of the equipment which had taken hours to set up was torn down and gone in a matter of minutes. We carried our stuff back to the studio and I was left with my press pass and the shock that I’d just covered the President’s speech.
Part of me couldn’t help but think, “All of that stress and work during the past week to get access to the past hour?” It was worth it.
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